Replaceable wear members for protecting structural members such as the bowl of a bucket or the bed of truck body are well known in the art. These replaceable wear members come in many different shapes and forms and employ a variety of different attachment methods for securing them to the structural or parent members they protect. For instance, some wear members may be simple strips or plates of steel, which are welded to the structural member. Bolts are also commonly used to secure such wear members. More recently, separate "wear tiles" have been employed, such as the one depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,564,508, entitled Replaceable Wear Runner issued Oct. 15, 1996 to William J. Renski and assigned to the assignee hereof.
Prior wear members may be 50 to over 100 mm thick and, because they are steel, are quite heavy and add a significant amount of weight to the truck body or bucket. As a result, the carrying capacity of the truck body or bucket if effectively reduced. Also, the truck bodies of off-highway trucks, for instance, are loaded by large loaders or shovels capable of picking up and then dropping boulder size rocks into the truck body. As such large rocks are dropped from great heights, large impact loads are exerted on the truck bed, creating dents and unevenness in the bed. As a result, the corners or other portions of the wear members become spaced from and unsupported by the bed. When impacted by subsequent rocks, these wear members may themselves break or have securing method fail, resulting in the loss of the wear member.
Accordingly, it would be highly advantageous to employ a wear member that adds less weight to the truck body or bucket, while maintaining its ability to protect the structural members thereof or overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.